In the first video installment of the #B2BTalks event 5, we take a look at what, if anything, is the difference between traditional and digital marketing. The panel tackles a topic that is one of the biggest challenges for B2B marketers today: The world of marketing has changed drastically. More

“My CEO sees the marketing department as a presentation factory.”“Management doesn’t approve additional budget for anything besides events.”“Our job is to create collateral for the sales team, nothing more.”“We had amazing PR a couple of months ago, and no one understands the success.”“We need a new website, but management won’t approve it.”“We don’t do social media; our CEO doesn’t believe in it.”

In the last segment from #B2BTalks 4, our panel of speakers share their top lead generation tips and tricks. Watch the video here to learn the many ways our industry leaders handle leads with multiple touch points, as well as how to personalize your message for maximum impact.

In this #B2BTalks video our panelists go into the importance of reaching prospects at the right place at the right time. They give real-life examples of what worked for them, and offer practical and usable advice. Watch the video below for their tips.

According to BrightFunnel, a company that analyzes funnel performance of enterprise companies such as Cloudera, this number grows every year, as well as the time required to close a deal, and the time it takes a lead to become relevant to sales. This is the reality that we are all facing, and it seems that things are going to get worse. With 76% of B2B marketers planning to create more content in 2016, we will see more leads coming into our pipeline in earlier stages, increasing the need for smart nurturing and insights into the buyer journey. More

Digital marketing is tough. Buyers’ behavior is in constant transition, and in addition to this, LinkedIn, Google and other platforms are constantly changing their algorithms in ways that directly affect your marketing programs. B2B leads are being bombarded by intricate content marketing programs from you and your competitors.

To make matters worse, marketing budgets are not increasing, so to respond to such changes often you need to divert budgets from the tried and tested marketing methods and reallocate money to new digital channels.

In order to make smart decisions you need to be able to measure and analyze your marketing program’s performance. But this is easier said than done. Lack of industry standards, the infancy of measurement platforms, and the complexity of defining and implementing a measurement strategy turns this challenge into a major obstacle in most of the B2B companies that we’ve met. After running more than 100 B2B marketing programs (one of the perks of working with multiple clients), we’ve had our share of mistakes and insights regarding what works and what doesn’t when it comes to B2B marketing and sales measurement.

Here are the key points we recommend for you to consider when measuring your B2B marketing operation. It’s not a definitive guide, but it includes all the key considerations that are not only important, but also timeless. These points will be relevant no matter how marketing tactics change over time. More

In our new Marketing Voices series, we invite exciting digital marketing professionals to join the conversation. This month’s guest post is by Nick Rojas, an experienced business consultant and writer living in Los Angeles and Chicago. Nick has consulted small and medium-sized enterprises for over twenty years and has contributed articles to Visual.ly, Entrepreneur, and TechCrunch.

It’s no secret that startups, small businesses, and even one-man entrepreneurial operations all share a need to invest in digital marketing. While search engine optimization and excellent content go a long way towards creating growth, social media cannot be ignored if you want to jumpstart your business’s future and start connecting with your audience in an effective way. More

Businesses that fail to nurture their leads are almost certainly wasting marketing budget, especially for businesses with long sales cycles. As Ramel Levin, VP of Marketing at CloudEndure notes, 75% of leads will not convert immediately and need to be nurtured. More

“What is the most important thing for a company? Is it the cash flow? Is it the inventory? Nuh-uh. It’s the people. The people.”

Whether or not you take management advice from Michael Scott, Regional Director of Dunder Mifflin from the popular comedy show The Office, he makes a valid point. While we may rely more on our iPads than our paper distributor in order to run our daily business operations, what’s really most important is the people, our customers.

Customers today have high expectations and hold more power than ever before. IBM is plowing forward with various platforms to help marketers meet these demands. In a world with constant connectivity, customers demand almost instant responses and one misstep in their buying experience can leave them running to your competitor, along with hundreds of their Facebook friends and Twitter followers. This is the challenge that IBM’s various marketing platforms face. These include Silverpop and Unica for marketing automation, along with Watson and other Business Intelligence platforms for valuable insights. More